


I Need Direction To Perfection

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Play Along [33]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Gen, band au, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 21:53:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7775068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: 'any, any, "We have one last option, and you're not going to like it.'</p><p>Rodney starts a new project and needs a guitarist, and none of the studio guitarists are good enough, and then Hailey has an idea.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Need Direction To Perfection

Jeannie was right. Rodney wasn't made to be lowly session musician forever. He took great pride in playing well, and he took great pride in making sure the sound engineering was right, but in his heart he was a songwriter. He liked to make music.  
  
"But I don't have any songs," Rodney protested. "Not anymore."  
  
Jeannie, slouched on the couch and rubbing her swollen belly while Rodney patiently massaged her feet, pouted at him. "But that song you were playing on the piano the other day sounded great."  
  
"It was a jazz rendition of Fact Fiction," Rodney said.  
  
"Well, it sounded pretty good." Jeannie patted him on the shoulder gently. "You should start a jazz band. Do jazz covers of whatever songs you want. Maybe it'll inspire you to do new ones."  
  
Immediately Rodney thought of all the other musicians he knew at the studio, who would be useful in such an ensemble. "You know what? You're right."  
  
Jeannie was right. Rodney spent the next week going around to all the other musicians at the studio, asking them to join his crazy venture. He drew up concept sketches and storyboards for the ideas he had for music videos on YouTube. With Jeannie's help, he came up with ideas for fancy dresses, which wooed some of the female session singers to agree to be his vocalists.  
  
And so he set about making arrangements of songs the Space Monkeys had done.  
  
And he realized, about two weeks into the project, that he hadn't thought of John Sheppard, not once.  
  
And hey, maybe he was okay.  
  
Except none of the guitarists were good enough for what he wanted. None of them.  
  
Except Hailey.  
  
She sighed. "I cannot play in your awesome cover a band, Rodney. I have my own band."  
  
"But every other guitarist here is incompetent," Rodney hissed. "Short of you and Vala, there's no one who plays the way I want them to play. I need the perfect guitarist."  
  
"There's no such thing as the perfect guitarist," Hailey said patiently, tuning her guitar. She played a beautiful flamenco riff just to taunt him with her skill.  
  
"You're the closest I've heard. You and Vala."  
  
Hailey arched an eyebrow at him. "Flattery will get you nowhere."  
  
"Hailey -"  
  
"Just give some of the session musicians a try."  
  
Rodney did. Every single guitarist. He ought to have started at the bottom of the list, because starting with the best and cycling through them down to the worst was just depressing.  
  
Two weeks after that, he went crawling back to Hailey. "Please. I beg of you. I'll make your favorite cookies." That had been Jeannie's suggestion for currying favor with the women in his life, but that was probably because she had an insane craving for chocolate chip cookies and Rodney kept baking them.  
  
"We have one last option," Hailey said, "and you're not going to like it."

Half an hour into the six-hour drive, Rodney didn't like her option, but she assured him, while she drove like a drunk grandmother, that this guitarist would be worth it.  
  
The bar Hailey picked was about an hour outside Rodney's old stomping grounds, and he was a little nervous about being recognized, but the bar was called Anything Goes, and Rodney was pretty sure that none of the bar's patrons, who were wearing enough leather and spikes for an S&M army, were Space Monkeys fans.  
  
Hailey picked a table with a bad view of the stage - but a good view of the corner of the stage where the guitarist lurked - and ordered two drinks.  
  
"Watch," she whispered in his ear, and then sat back to sip her drink slowly.  
  
The bar was deafening, because whoever was running sound for the speed metal band tearing it up on the stage was incompetent. All of the musicians were wearing leather and spikes, just like the bar's patrons. Rodney could barely see the guitarist, who was lurking in a back corner like he didn't want to be seen.  
  
Rodney discovered that if he covered his ears, he could actually hear the guitarist, though. The melodic work from the lead guitarist was good. He had impressive speed. But Rodney had absolutely zero intention of doing any song covers in this genre.  
  
He was unaccountably relieved when the song ended and the band took its bows and proceeded to break down their instruments.  
  
"Not exactly my genre," Rodney began, but Hailey said, "Keep watching."  
  
The leather-clad patrons departed from the bar, and a new crowd flooded in, all homespun clothes and tie-dye and actual flowers in their hair, and Rodney realized that in the bar, _anything goes_ was perhaps literal, at least by musical genre. Given how fast the next band set up, Rodney shouldn't have been surprised at how lousy the sound was.  
  
The folk band assembled on the stage, and when the straw-haired singer whipped out a tambourine, Rodney wondered if he should be taking his drink faster, but Hailey was taking hers very, very slowly.  
  
It took Rodney two songs to realize that the guitarist in the straw cowboy hat, flannel shirt, and scuffed jeans was the same guitarist as had been in the thrash metal band. So he learned in and watched more closely. Where the guitarist had had impressive speed before, he had excellent rhythm now. The texture he gave the chords brought the songs to life beneath the so-called singer's inept bleating.  
  
The guitarist donned a fedora and a pin-striped jacket for the jazz set, and maybe Hailey was onto something, because his improvisational skills were excellent. He donned a ridiculous sombrero and a serape to play duets with a pretty, dark-skinned Mexican girl, and his skill at flamenco guitar was breathtaking. Even Hailey looked impressed, nodding and smiling and sipping her drink more.  
  
The guitarist was some kind of house musician, Rodney realized. He accompanied every act that needed it, because anything went on that stage, and it was his job to make sure it went. That was why he wore a hat and stayed back in the shadows, because he wasn't the star. He was just there to make the music.  
  
"You're right," he murmured to Hailey while the girl guitarist took her bows. "He's perfect."  
  
"Don't thank me yet," Hailey warned him.

Rodney raised his eyebrows, but she didn't elaborate, so he turned his attention back to the stage, wondering what genre would be next.  
  
There was no band, though. Just the guitarist, pulling up a stool and adjusting the microphone so he could play solo. Rodney sat up straighter, intrigued. The guitarist flashed a thumbs up at the sound guy, and Rodney really was itching to go fix the sound.  
  
The guitarist began to strum some minor chords, and someone in the back of the bar yelled, "Dude, the hat!"  
  
The guitarist paused, attempted to shrug off the serape, only it got caught on the sombrero, and someone actually hopped up on the stage to disentangle him, and when he emerged from the cloth and straw, he was -  
  
John Sheppard. In all his beautiful, messy-haired glory.  
  
Rodney cast Hailey an accusing look, but then John was strumming those minor chords, and he was singing.  
  
_My hands are cold_  
 _My body's numb_  
 _I'm still in shock_  
 _What have you done?_  
 _My head is pounding_  
 _My vision's blurred_  
 _Your mouth is moving_  
 _I don't hear a word_  
  
_And it hurts so bad_  
 _That I search my skin_  
 _For the entry point_  
 _Where love went in_  
 _And ricocheted_  
 _And bounced around_  
 _And left a hole when you walked out..._  
  
Rodney's throat closed. He recognized that look on John's face, from the hours and hours of YouTube footage he'd watched when he was alone and awake in the middle of the night.  
  
John had always made fun of Rodney for his off-the-wall metaphors, and in return Rodney made fun of John's ridiculous extended metaphors, because who did he think he was, John Donne?  
  
But the extended metaphor of losing love like a fatal gunshot wound was damn good. And damn painful.  
  
Hailey was right, though. John was exactly who Rodney needed. He'd known John was a good guitarist, but he'd always assumed John had just decent enough technical skill that was amplified by the passion he could pour into his music. Then he remembered, the first time John showed up to practice, it was with his electric acoustic. Teyla had assured Rodney that John was more than qualified for the job, that even though he'd stopped playing for an ensemble he'd continued playing on his own. Apparently on his own he'd learned to play - everything.  
  
John was perfect for Rodney's music. And he was perfect for Rodney.  
  
He sat back and listened to the next run of songs John played, all originals - because he knew more about John's songwriting style than he realized - and pondered how best to convince John to come back to him.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from All These Things That I've Done by The Killers
> 
> Song credits:  
> Fact Fiction - Mads Langer  
> Exit Wounds - The Script (seeds for this song planted in the installment where John goes crying to Cam)
> 
> Genres inspired by the following (except, you know, not inept):  
> Rodney's cover project - Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox  
> Speed Metal - X Japan  
> Folk - Peter Paul and Mary  
> Jazz - Yoko Kanno and The Seatbelts  
> Flamenco - Gabriela y Rodrigo


End file.
